Keith Burgess' legacy felt by Delaware runners

Keith Burgess died Monday at age 91. The Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame member never missed a Harrington or Lake Forest cross country meet and missed only one track meet during one 47-year stretch.(Photo: Submitted)

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Keith Burgess' determination made track and field and cross country available across southern Delaware

The 35th annual Keith Burgess Invitational track and field meet will be held April 12 at Lake Forest

When Keith Burgess was growing up in Harrington, baseball was his passion, as it was for many boys in the first half of the 20th century.

He starred on Harrington High squads before graduating in 1940 and, after serving in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II, played on town teams in the Mar-Del League.

But it was Burgess' determination to make track and field and cross country available – first to Harrington students, then to those throughout southern Delaware – that cemented his legacy.

Burgess died Monday at age 91 after several years of declining health, said his son and only child, Mathew. Keith Burgess' name will live on April 12 at Lake Forest High, where the 35th annual Keith Burgess Invitational track and field meet will be held.

"Keith Burgess was always there," said Bob Neylan, the 1962 Dover High graduate who coached Senators track teams from 1973-82 and 1987 and later directed the state track and field championships. "His name is synonymous with track and field and cross country in Delaware. It's amazing."

After being elected to what was then the Harrington school board in 1956, Burgess was instrumental in starting the Harrington High track and field team in the spring and cross country team, which had just one runner, Dwight Hackett, in the fall of 1957.

While some downstate schools had track teams, Harrington was the first with cross country. Burgess would drop off Hackett, who'd impressed him with his half-mile running on the previous spring's track team, and then pick him up a couple miles later at the end of a training run. If it was dark, he'd show the way in the car with his headlights.

"I was the first," Hackett, now 71 and living in Clayton, said on Tuesday, "but he took an interest in a lot of us and I will always be thankful."

As the lone Harrington entry at the 1957 state meet, Hackett tangled with those experienced upstaters at Wilmington's Rockford Park and made the top 15. In 1960, Harrington crowned the state champion in Harry Knotts. In 1963, the first year the state meet was split into divisions based on school enrollment, Harrington won the Division II title. It also won the 1966 title. Harold McDonald coached those teams.

"My dad had seen some track in the Merchant Marine and that renewed his interest," said Mathew Burgess, whose father had enjoyed field-day-type competitions as a boy. "But it was cross country that really piqued his interest."

At the time, football was the only available fall sport for boys downstate. Keith Burgess, who worked full-time for the U.S. Postal Service, felt they deserved another option.

"The reason it was important to him was because he felt not all kids were big enough to play football," Mathew Burgess said. "If he saw a kid running when he was out on his mail route – or a slender kid – he would pull over and recruit him."

Burgess then traveled to other schools in Kent and Sussex counties, such as Greenwood, Milton and Felton, and encouraged them to start cross country teams.

Harrington merged with Frederica and Felton to form the Lake Forest School District – and Lake Forest High – in 1969-70 during the widespread consolidation of small Kent and Sussex County districts. In 1969, the first year of consolidation and with McDonald coaching, Lake Forest won the first of its Division II state cross country titles, which now number 10.

Burgess never coached. But, during a 47-year stretch, his son said, he never missed a Harrington or Lake Forest cross country meet and missed only one track meet after he was not aware it had been rescheduled following a rainout.

"He used to tell kids, especially the boys who lived out on the farms, 'If you join the team, I'll make sure you get home,' " Mathew Burgess said. "He had a station wagon and it would be packed full of kids. We would take every kid home and then he and I would go home and have supper with Mom."

Beginning in the early 1970s, Lake Forest was coached by Jim Blades, who came to rely greatly on Burgess and eventually started the annual track meet that bears his name. In 2004, the year Blades died of cancer, he and Burgess were both elected to the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame.

"Jim and Keith were joined at the hip," Neylan said. "Jim greatly valued Keith's influence."

The annual Lake Forest Invitational cross country meet at Killens Pond State Park, which borders Lake Forest and gives the school and district their names, began as the Harrington Invitational in the 1960s because of Burgess and McDonald.

In 1996, Burgess was honored by the Delaware Sportswriters & Broadcasters Association with its Herm Reitzes Award, given annually to someone who has provided selfless service to sports in Delaware.

For many years, Burgess also wrote for the Harrington Journal. An accomplished singer, Burgess was known as the "Singing Mailman" when he had a 12-mile walking route in the 1940s, his son said. He then had a rural motor postal route. But Burgess sang in various local church, choral and theatre groups, would frequently lead runners in song during drives to and from practices and meets, and often sang the national anthem at the Burgess Invitational.

In addition to his son, Burgess is survived by his wife of 64 years, Margaret Jane Burgess, and grandchildren Emily Elborn, Keith S. Burgess II and Alison Burgess. He was preceded in death by his parents, James Harvey and Kitty Leona Burgess, brothers Carrington, Winston and Byron and sister Melba.

A memorial service is Sunday at 2 p.m. at Asbury United Methodist Church in Harrington.